"Soundpetal."
She slowly opened her dark blue eyes, tilting her head upwards to meet the glowing gaze of her new leader.
He stood upon the Rock, looking down at her figure as she sat there, and with a small flick of his snowy-white tail tip, he beckoned her forth. She rose to her paws carefully, padding down new pathway that had been formed by her clanmates filing out to the sides. She padded down the isle, her head ducked as she heard whispers, and felt the burning stares of her clanmates on her already hot pelt.
She halted when she reached just below the rock, looking up steadily once more at her leader. He looked down at her for a few heart-stopping moments, before looking up towards the dark sky, along with the rest of the clan.
"By my own power, and StarClan's as well, I now announce you deputy of StoneClan."
That's where it happened. She felt her heart thrum once loudly in her chest, and she seemed to lurch, her eyes stretching wide. Her muscles tensed, her body clenched, her teeth grit, her claws created indents in the stony-sand ground. She felt herself heat up, an almost overwhelming flame boil through-out her body. It felt like lightning at times, jolting through her limbs, causing her to just stiffen even more, her ears twitching back against her skull.
She finally looked down, her eyes narrowing to mere slits, and she saw it. It pooled around her paws; it snaked up her legs; it echoed from her claws.
Shadows.
Shadows. Shadows.. Her first thought instantly was useless. But the way the shadows weaved, the way they snaked and almost seemed to claw at the ground, she knew it was far, far from useless.
A small hiss, mingled with a soft shriek, escaped her jaws, before she swallowed it down, and then, it stopped. The shadows retreated. Her body cooled down. Her muscles relaxed. Her ears perked back up. She did not look up, though, and no cats expected her to; they all knew how painful and exhausting the ceremony was.
So, they all begun to cheer her name, letting their new deputy catch her breath. Everyone cheered. Everyone.
Except the medicine cat apprentice, that is.
Flowerwing watched from shadows outside the medicine cats' den with a grim facial expression, her fur pricking with uneasiness.
This was wrong, all wrong. She couldn't be made deputy, she just couldn't.. Something bad would come of it, she could just feel it.
And she was right.
Soundpetal was not exhausted, however, and as she looked down, her clan thinking she was just trying to recoop, oh no. She was smirking. No, that smirk turned into a wide grin. A wickedly wide grin. The newly appointed StoneClan deputy knew that the petty little medicine cat apprentice did not trust her. Slyly, and slowly, she turned her head to the side, looking past her shoulder, fixating her shadowed gaze through the crowd of cats and on Flowerwing, who caught her gaze with a jolt.
The apprentice stiffened, her whole body stiffening as the cats faded. They disappeared. No.. they dropped to the ground. Bloody. Mangled. Punctured. Lifeless. Soundpetal only remained, blood turning the white on her crimson, the dark brown on her black, and the black on her some color deeper then black. Her paw, planted firmly on their leader's throat, who lied at her paws, slaughtered and unmoving, every life likely ripped away carelessly. Fire and red stained everywhere else.
Then it was gone.
The crowd's cheering soon died down, and Soundpetal looked away, lifting her head as the cats begun to push against her and congratulate her with purrs and whole-hearted meows. Flowerwing could only watch in sheer horror and disgust as they did so.
They were congratulating the single downfall of their clan.
Congratulating their murderer.
Flowerwing swallowed, rising to her lightly-colored paws, and retreated back into her den, only one thing flashing through her mind:
It has begun.